Is it me or is it the movies? Part II

Coming to you soon in glorious 3D!!!

If I see one more preview for a film in 3D I am liable to throw something at the screen. Enough already. Not that there is anything wrong with making films in 3D, but the films being made in 3D are for the most part nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Shows what Hollywood thinks of their audience. Story? Direction? Acting? That's hard and no predictor of success. Let's film it in 3D! Boffo box office! Pretty sure Sophie's Choice in 3D can't be far behind.
On the other hand, there's a part of me that is really tempted by Jackass 3D. If ever there was a gimmick that one's it.



Machete

Robert Rodriguez is a very talented and skilled filmmaker and it really shows in Machete. I saw more than my share of grindhouse films in the 70s. Machete is so good that despite watching it inside of a state of the art movie theater in Riga, Latvia (that's in Europe for the geographically challenged), from the start of the opening credits I was instantly transported to the seedy Chicago Loop of the late 70's. I could even imagine hearing the popcorn popping in the lobby and other not so fond sounds and smells came back in sense memory. Mark of a great film if it can capture the sense and feel of a time and place.
One problem. Grindhouse films were awful. Really, really bad films. The kind of films that distributors would buy the pound and were judged by how many shots of naked women they had and how many kills they contained. These were the type of films that could and would only appeal to 16 year old boys or those who no matter their age still had the emotional maturity of one. So here's the conundrum. If someone makes a great bad film does that make the film great or bad? I don't know the answer, but a part of me wishes Rodriguez would make a straight film for once. Same goes for Quentin Tarantino.

Red

There's a little desperation in my film watching of late. Its not that I haven't seen some good films lately (Social Network, The Town, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), but sometimes you just want something mindless and less filling. I knew exactly what I would get with Red and that's exactly what I got. The only thing I can say about the film is that movie stars should never ever surround themselves with actors. Its just asking for trouble. Bruce Willis is good at what he does. Really he is. I loved Die Hard. All of them. He has even shown an occasional, no matter how brief, flash of acting ability. But in a film with John Malcovich, Helen Miren, Brian Cox and Morgan Freeman, all excellent actors, oops. Movie stars and actors should never mix. The secret of a movie star is that they attract the audience's eye. As Mel Gibson once said they know where to stand and how to look at and look great on camera. As long as they're the focal point of the scene. In an ensemble cast Willis is lost. He just simply does know what to do when the camera is not on him and he isn't the center of the action. And on the few occasions when he tries to act it just falls flat because the other actors don't have to try.

Amaya

Comedy/Drama.
2010.
Written and directed by Maris Martinsons.
Starring: Kaori Momoi, Andrius Mamontovas, Monie Tung, Kristine Nevarauska, and Lau Dan.

So when is a Latvian film a Latvian film? Does it have to be in Latvian, with Latvian actors and take place in Latvia and have something to do with being Latvian? Directly or indirectly? No matter how remote?

Amaya takes place in Hong Kong. It stars Andrius Mamontovas (Lithuanian) and Kaori Momoi (Japanese). The dialogue is mostly in English and Cantonese. Its written and directed by Maris Martinsons (a Latvian, but one who has been living in Lithuania since 1991). Then again, Martinsons did recently move back to Latvia and the film has been selected as Latvia’s entry for the 2010 Academy Awards. That’s good enough for me.

Amaya is part Lost in Translation, part travelogue, and parts other. The story follows several characters who at the onset seem to have nothing in common. There’s Paul, the seemingly lonely and lost traveler who finds himself in Hong Kong. There’s Amaya and her husband stuck in the routine rut of everyday life. There’s Amaya’s brother in-law Tao who owns a massage parlor and gives classes on the side. We don’t really know much about the characters. Martinsons keeps the back stories and exposition to a minimum and allows their stories to unfold slowly. The film lives in the present and in the now and that’s its greatest strength. Its basically a journey of self-discovery. We discover the characters as they discover themselves.

Amaya will not be everyone’s cup of tea. The pacing can be slow and the motivations of the characters unclear. Its like traveling alone to a foreign place. Confronted with unfamiliar surroundings, tastes, smells and sounds one tends to first withdraw inward. The tendency is to stick to the grounds of wherever its is you are staying or at least the immediate vicinity. But, if you can overcome that first shock and are willing to start venturing a bit further, no matter how slowly, the rewards of what can be discovered are well worth it. Not only about the location, but about yourself.

Medibas (The Hunt)

Drama.
2009.
Directed by Andis Miziss.
Written by Kaspars Odins and Elvita Ruka.
Starring: Andris Keiss, Santa Didzus, Jana Sekste and Guna Zarina.

Emir Kusturica is a world renowned Serb filmmaker who makes great surreal and absurdist films. Time of the Gypsies and Arizona Dream come to mind. Medibas tries to traverse the same terrain, but unfortunately Andis Miziss, the director of the film, is no Kusturica. The elements are there, but somehow they never really come together into a cohesive story in which we care about either the characters or the outcome of their actions.

The film opens with a scene of two men making and bottling juice in a rundown former train station. A train pulls up. Its the owner of the bottling operation stopping by to check on the progress. The train also serves as a home for unwed mothers and the bottling operation owner seems to be their matron. The men hadn't been paid in a while and ask as to their wages. The owner gives them the runaround and instead presses them to finish the latest shipment. The train pulls away, one of the bottlers goes back in and out of spite adds some poison to a few of the bottles. The entire shipment is then delivered to a small country bar.
Elsewhere a trio of Orienteering competitors get lost in the woods, a hunting party, also on rails, sets out for their annual hunting party, a famous architect and his highly strung lover are working out some issues, and a local policeman is trying to keep his young partner awake at a railroad crossing.
Keeping track? All of these characters and stories of course will be intertwined and then stuff will happen or as a friend of my commented "and then it gets weird."
Medibas is not all bad. There are some good performances (Guna Zarina's Renate the best among them) and the stories have potential but its just that it never really comes together. Its just a lot of exposition about really strange situations and the sometimes strange people who get trapped in them.
The title itself seems to be an allusion to the personal and emotional hunts we all engage in our daily lives. But there's just too much of the strange here that is never really explained. Its a strangeness overload and we are far too busy making up our own back stories for the characters to have any time to actually relate to them. Just starting with the train, is it really that easy and simple to operate your own train, maintain your own track? Doesn't it cost money to operate a train and why put a home for unwed mothers on it and who would ever send or willingly find themselves on this one?

Is it me or is it the movies?

I love the movies. I've seen quite a few of them. At a rough count lets say 5000 or so. Started having disposable income around the age of 14 and like most at that age had plenty of motivation to escape reality. Hey, at least it kept me away from drugs.

I used to cut school often and take the L into the Loop and get off at Washington. The Loop of those days was quite different. Not quite the shiny tourist mecca that it is today, but it didn't lack for movie theaters. Within minutes walking distance you had the Chicago, State and Lake, Woods, Oriental, United Artists and McVickers.

These were the days of double, and sometimes triple, bills. The first showtime often started at 8am. The fare certainly wasn't highbrow. We're talking The Master of the Flying Guillotine, Bruce Li and the Tool Box Murders. But there were also plenty of middlebrow choices. Whatever Hollywood decided to release for better or worse could be found in one densely packed movie mecca.

For the highbrow you could walk a few blocks and you had the Water Tower and Fine Arts. For the truly obscure you had the Parkway on Clark which had a different slate of films each day. Then the VCR came along, HBO, Blockbuster. Long story short, my film tastes were omnivorous and I certainly didn't lack for choices. I'd watch almost anything. When the AFI releases those lists of Top 100 this or that I've often seen between 60 to 90 of the films on any given list. This is not meant to be me bragging about how much I've seen. Just that I used to go to a lot of movies and the movies I would sit through cut across a pretty broad scape of genres and styles.

Until recently. Now weeks could go by without me seeing a single film. Might not seem like a big deal to most, but remember that I am someone who has probably averaged about 3 films per week for the past 35 years or so. Something changed. Is it me?

I am not a fan of nostalgia. Always been distrustful of the longing for the past. As they say the only thing certain in life is change. Sorry, but things were not always better when you were a kid. Popular and creative tastes go through cycles just like everything else.

Nor am I one to bash Hollywood for releasing commercial films for the lowest common denominator. Might come as a shock to some, but film making was always about finding the broadest possible audience. Films are far too expensive. They require far too many people to make. The average Hollywood film costs around $100,000,000 to make. Quite a bit of that is creative accounting, but that's still an awful lot of zeros. If you were putting up that much money you'd want some guarantee on your investment as well.

But something has changed. I first noticed it a few years ago when I started watching films on my PC. I'd start watching a film and then at some point, usually around the same time into the film, I'd start playing Freecell or Minesweeper. One eye on the film and one on the game. Okay. So some of that might be middle age ADD and some part of it is just simply that most films follow a fairly common structure. They even teach it in Film School. By page such and such, such and such thing must happen to advance the plot, etc. You watch enough films and that pattern gets kind of burned into your psyche and at some subconscious level you know when you can get up and go to the bathroom without missing some important plot point. Its not necessarily a bad thing. Its like meatloaf. No matter what you do to meatloaf it usually comes out the same usually. Its predictable and comfortable and I still like it.

The other thing I noticed is film previews. If you go see an animated film the film previews will almost all be for animated films. Romantic comedy, action, drama, the same. And even within that they'll be almost all the same.

Films are no longer just films. They're product. To some degree they've always been product, but now it seems like they're product first. Like a can of Coke. They're slotted for a specific audience with specific tastes and tug on specific emotional wavelengths. Nothing wrong with that in a way. I like Coke, but the films themselves seem to have become secondary. You don't start out with a film and then find an audience. You start with an audience and then create a film for that audience. Its like if you were making Coke now, you'd start with the can. Not with what's in it. Its about the packaging. Not about the content.

Then again, maybe I've just seen too many packages.

Banana Shpeel

Growing up, while other kids wanted to be cosmonauts, firemen and policemen, my ambition in life was to be a clown. Hold off on the snickering for a moment (yes, I know some would say I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams). I am not talking clown as in Bozo. If I grew up watching Bozo I too might be scared of clowns. I am talking clown as in Oleg Popov. There was just something about him that spoke to me as a child. The world he lived in was wondrous and a little bit scary and his routines were full of whimsy and wonder. There was very little of the mean spirited in him. My mom even made me a Purim costume once with his trade mark floppy hat and bow tie. Its a fond memory.

The love of the clown led to a love of the Circus. Riga had a permanent Circus building and all of the greats of the time would sooner or later pass through it. Here too there is a world of difference between the circus of Ringling Brothers, for example, and the Circuses of Europe. American circuses seem to be more about spectacle and grandeur. Europe's circuses were more about artistry and performance. I never could get into the three ring circus. Too much information. Too many distractions. Not that the US lacks for alternatives. Big Apple Circus and even Chicago's very own Midnight Circus come to mind. But there is a distinct difference. Until Cirque Du Soleil come along. Still vividly remember the first show I saw by them (Allegria). I just couldn't stop enthusing. Haven't missed seeing too many opportunities to see a new show every time they come through town.

Not that everything they touch is perfect. Hated Zumanity. Burlesque is burlesque, but this wasn't even the burlesque of Cabaret. This to me was the burlesque of Cafe Flesh. Rather than sensual it was raunchy. And not in a good way. Cafe Flesh works in its own fashion (just don't ever watch it in a crowded theater with people expecting something completely different, but that's a blog for a different day). So when a friend pointed out that Cirque had a new show that they were previewing in Chicago in which they take on Vaudeville I was a little apprehensive. Will this be another Zumanity? Will they treat Vaudeville with some affection and reverence or will this be a broad farce? A dark satire of something which at its very core is already a parody of itself?

Banana Shpeel works. It works very, very well. I had the same thrill that I did the first time I saw a Cirque show. It treats the subject matter as it should be treated. It doesn't try to out do vaudeville, but retains its feel while updating it for the modern age. Whether its the shtick of the clowns, the dance numbers, the jugglers, the comedy bits, or the acrobatics, they all work. Well, okay. Not everything works. The bigger comedy bits fall flat. They probably sounded really good on paper and they might work on the screen where you have the luxury of editing and close ups, but live on stage they just become a bunch of people running around in chaos. Hopefully as the show moves to New York they'll work out the kinks. Either way, there's still a lot of Shpeel to like.

Dima Shine's balance act is just incredible to watch. Remember the China Olympics openning ceremony and the bit where that older man ran around the stadium walls while suspended by wires? Dima does the same thing while holding on to a spinning pole perfectly perpendecular to the floor without a single muscle quivering. No wires. Vanessa Alvarez puts a new spin (literally) on a traditional foot juggling act and Tuan Le does some very interesting things with hats.

The circus and the cirque are not for everyone, but for those of you who enjoy either one or the other I highly recommend the show. The Chicago run has unfortunately ended, but sooner or later its bound to come back around. Either that or show up as part of the ever expanding Cirque Vegas empire.

Chicago Bears: 36. Minessota Vikings: 30.

Monday Night Football. National audience. Overtime. Bears win. Against the division leading Vikings. If there's any team Bears fans hate, assuming its not a game against the Packers, its the Vikings. And in Bret Favre you even have the Packers covered. Who could ask for more.

Then why am I so unhappy?

I am not exactly a huge sports fan. I don't spend much time watching sporting events on TV. I'd rather be doing than watching. Even thought in recent years the doing hasn't been much. Laziness and middle age. Still. Its the principle of the thing.

Used to think I was a basketball fan, but when Jordan finally retired for good I just stopped watching. So much for that theory. Was a huge hockey fan growing up in Latvia, but five years in Israel (no ice, therefore no hockey) and then the rest in Chicago where the brilliant owner of the Hawks at the time thought that showing games on broadcast TV hurts the fans (and where did he think new fans would come from?) took care of that itch. Tried baseball for a couple of years. Sorry. Too slow. Too boring. Not a criticism (well, maybe just a little). Grew up on soccer and couldn't really get into it either. Too slow. Too boring.

But football? Love football. Loved playing it. Love watching it. Okay. So I still need the home team to be playing for that emotional thrill, but its as close as I come to being a hardcore sports fan. I started following the Bears around 1978. Had missed maybe a handful games in all of the years since. That even includes preseason.

Saw a lot of good football. Saw Sweetness give 100% and run over the opposition no matter against whom and no matter the score. Saw Danimal and Mongo. The punky QB. Mama's boy Otis. Da Coach. The 85 Bears. Still have Super bowl XX on VHS. Then in more recent years there was the Ultraback and Urlacher.

Saw a lot of mediocre football. Saw Fencik and Plank so bored in a losing effort against Tampa Bay that they actually started a contest between themselves to see who could be the first to knock a Buc out of a game. I believe Plank won with his hit on Jimmie Giles. Saw Jim Harbaugh staring at his receivers. Saw Cade McNown bust. Salam. Enis. Colombo. Its a long list. There was the game where the Bears had to list Payton as an emergency QB. Would still be better than Rusty.

Went through quite a few head coaches. Neill Armstrong. Mike Ditka. Wanny. Dick Jauron. Same as the team. There was good and bad in coaching as with the team. Saw Da Coach bring back pride. Then saw Da Coach implode and self destruct. There's only so many times you can run the draw play to Denis Gentry on 3rd and long before it stops working. Heard Wanny tell us that all the pieces are in place and then wondered which team he was watching. Nothing memorable about Dick Jauron, but I think that's the point.

Good or bad I still watched. But even in the bad years at least the Bears were entertaining. And there was always next year. Of course as Da Coach once said: only cowards and losers live in the past.

Present day. Lovie Smith's Bears. Lovie is a nice guy. Maybe even a saint. I don't want anyone to lose their jobs under any circumstance. But Lovie has to go. I've seen bad football. I've seen bad teams. I've seen bad coaching. Will again I am sure. But this year for me has been about as bad as it gets. Lovie is like a combination of Wanny and Jauron. Jauron's personality minus Wanny's mustache.

I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I am just a fan. My football credentials are as follows:

• No high school or college football
• Lots of no equipment street ball on the lakefront. Being slightly faster and stronger than the average pretty much could do what I wanted against most opponents. Defense. Offense. Didn't matter. Give me the ball and I'll get you some yards. Put me on the other side and I'll get to the guy with the ball. Even played against some of the guys on Northwestern's football team once. The bad. Very, very bad period of Northwestern football.
• A couple of seasons on various flag/touch football. Mixed results. Not so good when you take the violence out of the equation. But held my own even if I didn't exactly excel.
  3/4 of a season of semi-semi pro football. Heh ... Did great during training camp playing center. Pretty much did what I wanted against our linebackers and DB's. Held my own against the D line. Then came the season opener against the Robert Taylor Homes team. First play from scrimmage. The nose guard glares at me. I glare at him. The quarterback yells out the snap count. I snap and ... I watch the nose guard run over me from my comfortable position of being flat on my back. He sacks the QB. The QB fumbles. They recover. So ends my first play from scrimmage. I improve as the season goes on, but not by much. Finished it playing defensive tackle. The highlight of the season was our game against the Pontiac State Prison team. We weren't very good, but maybe that's a post for a different day. If nothing else it just reinforced what they say about there being a tangible difference between high school, college, and the pros. The talent level increases by an incredible factor at each level. It really does. Trust me.
• 30 plus years of watching the Bears and the occasional Super bowl
• I made it to the championship game (and lost) of my Fantasy Football league this year

So with the above in mind and taking into account that there's plenty of blame to go around (if Jerry Angelo leaves I won't be heart broken; if the McCaskey's want to sell I'll pitch in a few bucks) here are all of the things that are wrong with the 2009 Chicago Bears. Its the Coaching. Its the Coaching. Its the Coaching. And its the Coaching. The Head Coach specifically.

Its been a rough year for Lovie. You lose your star linebacker in the first game. Your secondary goes through more injuries than a trauma center. The defensive line has underachieved for years. The offensive line is old. Your star receiver is a former defensive back. Your GM hasn't exactly given you much talent to work with. Not many studs on the bench. Even fewer on your practice squad. You have a fairly good, if not special, running back, but there's that questionable offensive line. The GM gave you a big name QB in Jay Cutler, but there's that questionable offensive line again. And did I mention that your star receiver is a former defensive back. I know a lot of people were excited about the Cutler trade and were expecting great things from the Bears, but I wondered what team they were watching. Not denying that Cutler was an upgrade at QB, but this team had so many holes to fill and so many question marks that the price paid for Cutler could have been better used elsewhere.

And despite all of the above. Sorry. Lovie must go. Its the head coach that needs to bear the burden and pay the price. Coaches often get too much of the blame and far too much of the credit when teams lose or win. And still. Its the head coach. Consider this. What is the head coach ultimately responsible for? Basically the following:

• Coaching: Making sure that a team has the best game plan in place for a given opponent and that the players understand that game plan
• Discipline: Making sure that a team executes that game plan on game day
• Personnel: Making sure that the right players are in the right positions and on the field at the right time and that they develop over the course of their careers

If you consider the above to be as important as I do then I don't see how anyone can justify keeping Lovie as head coach.

Let's start with Coaching.

Defense.

Lovie took over the defensive coordinating this season. So there is no Bob Babich to blame. No Ron Rivera. The scheme gets a lot of blame, but you know what? Its not the cover 2. Other teams use the cover 2 with good effect. The problem is that the cover 2 doesn't work with the personnel the Bears have in place. The cover 2 works when you have a good to above average defensive line. The linebackers and the DBs split up the field in zones. It gives you flexibility to be a little more creative with your blitzes and stunts and coverages. You can bring up DBs to play the run and drop linebackers back into coverage. Its as good as any scheme. Perhaps better than some. The Bears certainly have some linebackers who can cover. Speed as they say kills. The Bears have some DBs who can hit. On paper it sounds good. Really good. Its like having 12 players on the field. One problem. Its all predicated on that defensive line applying pressure. As long as the defensive line applies pressure at the initial point of attack it works. It frees up the linebackers to do what they need to do and it frees up the DBs to do what they need to do. If it doesn't you have serious problems. You give any NFL quarterback and receivers the time and they'll find the holes in the zones. Its how zones work by definition. You give them time and they'll kill you. No matter how great your DBs and linebackers. You allow the offensive line to control the line scrimmage and there will be holes there that you and I could run through. And we aren't Adrian Peterson. Guess what the weakest part of the Bears defense is? Sorry Alex Brown.

Is it all Lovies fault? Is it his fault that Tommy Harris has been injured and not playing at 100%? Did he draft Marcus Harrison who had one good season and then just disappeared’? Well, maybe partially, but more on the disappearing later. Did he sign Adewale Ogunleye? Again, don't know how much input he had on that. Either way, doesn't matter. Anyone who has watched the Bears the last three years has watched the same underachieving defensive line I have. Whatever the reasons, whatever the excuses, doesn't matter. Good coaches adjust. Lovie is not the first coach to fall in love with a scheme and stuck with it no matter what. Good coaches adjust and play the hand that's dealt them. Rather than continue down the same proven unworkable path.

Offense.

Okay. I guess we could blame Ron Turner and I am sure he will be the fall guy come season's end. We could blame Angelo and the Bears draft failures. But the head coach is the boss come game time. He watched the same guys we watched. He was there in preseason. He was there during training camp. He was even there during the OTAs. I wasn't. Don't know. Maybe he saw the same things we did. An aging offensive line. Lack of quality receivers. No true stud running back. Maybe he said something. Maybe no one listened. Maybe. No difference. Simple as it sounds, he is the Head coach. If no one listens to the head coach then that's a problem with the head coach. It has to do with being the Head part.

On to discipline.

Best way to judge discipline is penalties. As of December 19th the Bears were sixth in the NFL in team penalties. Sixth in bad way. Not in a good way.
Another good way is to see how the team performs through out the game. How many games this season have you seen the Bears perform throughout the entire game. Whether its falling so far behind that no one could ever come back or falling apart when the game is online?
How does the team play in big games? Whether against division arch rivals, on national TV or when the game really really matters? Do they put it all on the line or do they just show up. I think we all watched the same games this season. Sometimes it didn't even look like they showed up. Season opener Green Bay 21. Bears 15. Bears at Bengals. Bengals 45. Bears 10. This after the Bears lost to a good Falcons team. Record 3-3. They win against an awful Cleveland Browns team. The 30-6 score far better than they played. Then get demolished by the Cardinals 41-21. And so on.
No team can win every game. There are 32 teams in the NFL and only 12 of them make it to the playoffs. Life's not fair. For a team to win another has to lose. Its the nature of the beast. I still have scars on my psyche from watching the greatest Bears team ever (the 85 Bears) lose to Miami on Monday night.
Still. This Bears team is Jekyll and Hyde. Mostly Jekyll. In the football world Hyde would be good. The rage at least. Guess who is responsible to even it out? Bringing out the Hyde. Suppressing the Jekyll. None other than the head coach.

Last but not least, personnel. Blame Angelo. Blame Ted Phillips. Blame the scouting department.
Just for the Angelo tenure alone.

Bears Draft picks since 2001:

2009
Jarron Gilbert
Juaquin Iglesias
Henry Melton
D.J. Moore
Johnny Knox
Marcus Freeman
Al Afalava
Lance Louis
Derek Kinder

2008
Chris Williams
Matt Forte
Earl Bennett
Marcus Harrison
Craig Steltz
Zackary Bowman
Kellen Davis
Ervin Baldwin
Chester Adams
Joey LaRocque
Kirk Barton
Marcus Monk

2007
Greg Olsen
Dan Bazuin
Garrett Wolfe
Michael Okwo
Josh Beekman
Kevin Payne
Corey Graham
Trumaine McBride
Aaron Brant

2006
Danieal Manning
Devin Hester
Dusty Dvoracek
Jamar Williams
Mark Anderson
J.D. Runnels
Tyler Reed

2005
Cedric Benson
Mark Bradley
Kyle Orton
Airese Currie
Chris Harris
Rodriques Wilson

2004
Tommie Harris
Terry Johnson
Bernard Berrian
Nathan Vasher
Leon Joe
Claude Harriott
Craig Krenzel
Alfonso Marshall

2003
Michael Haynes
Rex Grossman
Charles Tillman
Lance Briggs
Todd Johnson
Ian Scott
Bobby Wade
Justin Gage
Tron Lafavor
Joe Odom
Brock Forsey
Bryan Anderson

2002
Marc Colombo
Roosevelt Williams
Terrence Metcalf
Alex Brown
Bobby Gray
Bryan Knight
Adrian Peterson
Jamin Elliott
Bryan Fletcher

2001
David Terrell
Anthony Thomas
Mike Gandy
Karon Riley
Bernard Robertson
John Capel

Not very impressive. A few diamonds in the rough in the later rounds, but every team has those. The first three? Some average players. The rest? Not good. And if you don't see what's coming by now I'll say it anyway. Doesn't matter. It happens to every team. Its back to my semi-semi pro experience. Its a different game. A different level in the NFL. Its hard to predict who will make it in the pros. A lot of college can't miss studs turn out to be complete busts at the next level. Some guys who no one gave a chance come out of the blue and become stars. While not exactly throwing darts while blindfolded a great deal of luck is needed when making your picks. Good coaches find ways to make do with what they have. Great coaches make what they have better. The Bears of recent years? Sorry. No better example than Rex Grossman who showed great promise and then got worse every year.

There's more, but this post is long enough. Never thought my longest post to date would be on the Bears, but life never turns out the way you plan.

Its nothing personal and I'd hate to be in his shoes, but please, please, can the Bears put Lovie out of this misery and me out of mine? A change of scenery might do him, and me, some good. Look what it did for Wanny and Pitt.

1America

I love this country. Myth thought it might be in many ways my experience is that of the American Dream. My mother and I arrived on these shores in 1977 and while not exactly being huddled masses yearning to be free between the two of us we basically had $600 and the clothes on our backs. 30+ years later we are comfortably lower middle class. There's a roof over our heads and money in our bank accounts. The refrigerator is full and there's a big flat screen TV in the living room. We have cable, we have a car, a motorcycle, central air conditioning and indoor plumbing. This might seem like a very simplistic way to look at life, but basically its my way of saying our lives are good in comparison to the lives of many, many others. So are the lives of most Americans. America is not perfect, but in many ways it is unique among nations and even thought it might be slightly tarnished of late it still is a beacon for democracy and a shining example for the world.
I love this country, but I've never really been capable of loving anything or anyone blindly (which often makes life difficult for those who've had the fortune or misfortune to be loved by me), and perhaps its that simple fact, or perhaps, its just the crankiness that comes with advancing middle age, but of late the number of things to which I can't turn a blind eye to has been reaching epic proportions. All I have to do is listen to the radio, turn on the TV, or read the news and something gets my blood a boil. Here's one example.

Bolshevism=Communist=Socialism=Liberalism

I was born in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. When the Soviets invaded in the 1940s my family lost everything. My maternal grandfather was executed for the crime of being a former military officer, a member of the intelligentsia, and the crime of wealth. My grandmother, my mother, aunt and uncle were exiled to the harsh labor camps of Siberia. I am about as rabidly anti-communist as you can get. But if I hear the word socialism mentioned one more time by anyone I am afraid I might break something. If ever there was concept or an idea the meaning of which has lost any real significance its the word "socialism" as used in the American body politic.
Most people's personal politics can be complex. No one is 100% this or that. I can be very conservative on some issues (law and order issues for example) and very liberal on others (gay marriage, decriminalization of illegal substances, etc.). I can be an an extreme economic conservative (government spending) and a borderline socialist (government regulation over markets). For the record (and since we all try to pigeonhole each other anyway) I consider myself to be a liberal. Another word which has lost any significant meaning here. For the most part, all of the above have become synonyms meaning the same thing (might as well add to the list: democrat, stalinism, maoism, marxism, leninism, etc.). They are not. Not by a long shot. I am not going to waste my time or yours by pretending to be a political scientist and try to explain the difference, but just trust me on this, they are all very different things. Here's Webster's definition of liberal:

Main Entry: ²liberal

Function: noun

Date: 1820

: a person who is liberal: as a : one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways b capitalized : a member or supporter of a liberal political party c : an advocate or adherent of liberalism especially in individual rights

I do not belong to any political party (which makes me an independent), but when all is said and done I tend to vote almost exclusively for Democrats. Now that that's out of the way, back to socialism.

Sorry. President Obama is not a Socialist. No member of Congress is a Socialist. Europe is not Socialist. Government spending is not Socialism. Taxes are not Socialism. Anyone who puts these terms together, sorry, is a raving idiot. Its an insult to reason, logic, and just plain common sense. I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with President Obama (I voted for him). I have no problem with anyone questioning the motives of members of congress (I voted for some of them). I don't like paying taxes. I don't even much like Europe. But what passes for political discourse in this country is starting to border on sheer lunacy. Again, no problem with anyone disagreeing with anyone else's ideas or policies. That's what democracy is all about. When ideas clash what remains in the shards are the shreds of truth. But if that clash starts out with lies of convenience, mischaracterizations and pandering to peoples most basest instincts (and regardless of which end of the right/left spectrum you find yourself everyone is guilty of this) the only thing that come of it is a tangled mess and a wasted fight.

One perfect example of this.

I was listening to an NPR (I told you I was a liberal) story the other day. It was all about Joe Wilson's by now infamous "You Lie!" outburst and whether or not its an indication of underlying racism (I don't think so so does this make me a conservative?). The story tried to present both sides of the issue in depth (this is why I like NPR) and interviewed who they felt could offer subjective and representative opinions. Side A was: of course its racism. Its always racism, etc. I didn't buy that argument (see, I am a conservative). Side B: of course it wasn't racism. Its about policy, etc. I didn't quite buy that argument either (the liberal is back). Then for a moment it actually got interesting. The person making the argument for side B brought up a point that I agree 100% with. Their complaint was that the charge of racism is usually politically motivated. Basically once you raise it you put your opponent on the defensive. The debate then becomes about racism and not about any policy differences you could possibly have. It stifles any kind of point you can make because all of a sudden you find yourself having to defend against a charge so heinous that it obscures anything else. Basically you just labeled every single opponent of policy X as being a RACIST and any argument they would possible make, regardless of whether it is racism or not, is now tainted. I 100% agree with this. But... and you knew there was a but coming. Then this very same person who raised that point and articulated it really well, that I 100% agree with, without nary a pause or a breath, continued with, well, the real problem with this country, the one true REAL problem that we need to look at is this country's path and turn towards SOCIALISM!

And this differs from calling someone a RACIST how? You just labeled an entire group and policy with a label that is neither accurate nor deserved. Just like labeling someone a racist pretty much eliminates any chance of real debate, labeling someone a socialist eliminates any chance of real debate. I guess its different when I do it?